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Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

chrisseaton.com

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Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#241

Post by ahtihn »

zdragnar wrote: post #140
foldr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You also get medical and dental insurance. This reminds me of a point Michael Moore made in Sicko – that Americans are generally fine with government spending if it's directed at the military. As he put it, America could probably have a national health service as long as the doctors and nurses wore camo.

It's a pretty lame point. We're fine with spending on members of the military because, at any point, they may have to put their lives on the line for the rest of us. National defense isn't something you can prepare for after you need it. There are valid arguments to be made for society banding together and providing health care for everyone. "but the military gets it" isn't one of them.

It's always funny to call it "defense" spending when so much of it goes to wars of aggression.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#242

Post by qiskit »

jpgvm wrote: post #144
qiskit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Queen’s enemies." I can't believe people still fight for royalty. Ants fight their queen's enemies. Free human being should fight for themselves, their families, etc.

It's not meant literally. Even in Australia our armed forces are still "Royal" but this is just a vestige of the past. i.e our ships are designated Her Majesty's Australian Ship (HMAS). What is means in practice is they fight for their country and its allies, just like any other military. While technically the Queen's representative in Australia (the Governor-General) is the chief of Australias armed forces (as defin…

Then don't say it period. Also, isn't the british queen still the head of state of australia? Every time I bring this up, it's always australians, canadians, british, etc making excuses.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#243

Post by nobody9999 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #114
scandox wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At RubyConf 2014 someone in the lunch queue asked what I did before I was in tech and asked me if I enjoyed killing babies when I explained. To some extent your question is in the same category as the above. It decontextualizes the situation entirely. He lives in a democracy. He obviously believes that society is less worse than some visible alternatives. He therefore believes he can fight on its behalf based on wh…

You are mostly right, except the democracy part: that does not mean anything. Greeks had democracy 25000 years ago and it did not go so well, a certain very famous dictator was elected to power and a present day Russian president as well. On paper they are all democracies, in practice there are degrees of bad or fake democracies all over.

>Greeks had democracy 25000 years ago and it did not go so well,

Absolutely. Especially since they did so to finally wipe out the scourge that were the Neanderthals.

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

I presume you meant 2,500 years rather than 25,000, yes?

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#244

Post by mardifoufs »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #67
basisword wrote: post #62

>> I originally joined the British Army full-time after finishing my masters in computer science at Bristol in 2007. At the time, the campaign in Afghanistan was in full-swing, and the campaign in Iraq was still running. All my peers were going into office jobs in London but I still wanted more fresh air at that point in my life. I just cannot understand this mindset. "I wanted to see the world so instead of taking a…

You're exactly the kind of tech person he felt like needing to explain this to.

In my case it's more me being a muslim that who saw first hand the effects of what is being "handwaved" in this very thread. I dont think that has anything to do with me being in tech.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#245

Post by losvedir »

YATA1 wrote: post #99
sputknick wrote: post #8

I spent five years in the Air Force. Posts like this are really helpful, a lot of Americans are disconnected from members of the military, especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve, or in fields (like tech) where people can often find less intrusive ways to pay for college. My favorite part of the article is dispelling the myth that in the military senior people bark orders, and don't ask for…

>especially in the upper classes where people do not need to serve This is a often repeated myth. The upper class serves more per capita than the lower class.

Do you have a source for that? The nearest I could find was this[0] and it doesn't support your assertion.

[0] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#246

Post by doodlebugging »

emmelaich wrote: post #214
doodlebugging wrote: post #164

>What is the Yeomanry anyway? >In 1797 the Kingdom of Great Britain feared an invasion by the French. You may think of the British as always having a large standing Army, but it was relatively small at the start of the Napoleonic era. To give a better chance of defending the nation against invasion, volunteer units of part-time soldiers were formed to serve only within Great Britain. Infantry were easy to form as the…

I thought the meaning of the 2nd amendment is now not solely understood as needing a well regulated militia. It is presented as an example of the benefit. So a modern sentence would be something like The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. For example, it is required if a well-regulated militia is to be assembled. Thus disconnecting the "well-regulated militia" idea as the sole justifica…

No disrespect intended at all in my response. I know it is a divisive issue.

Looking at the history though you would want to be a revisionist historian if you were to be phrasing it in that manner.

It was a contentious issue even back then. I have described why it reads as it does as it is important to understand that in reality, those who drafted the amendment went through multiple revisions before arriving at the final version precisely because each state had reservations about the level of power that should be given to individual citizens. They based their reservations on their own experiences dealing with threats on the frontier and with their experiences raising, training, and incorporating citizens into a force capable of defeating a well trained army during the American Revolution.

They tried to use what they had learned looking back, and craft an amendment that would help preserve the nation's ability to look ahead to a more prosperous future as an independent nation capable of defending itself from the threats they knew about or could expect at the time.

Like all the other amendments, the text in this one was a compromise between those who were charged with codifying standards for the new nation that all could agree upon.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#247

Post by mardifoufs »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #116
georgeecollins wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> so instead of taking a gap year I thought I'd go to the middle-east and do a bit of invading". The fault of bad wars is partly in military leadership but much more with politicians and voters. To blame anyone who serves for the choice occupy Afghanistan is misplaced. And who do you want to have in the military of a democracy? Only people from a particular class or culture? I'm glad that someone from the Hacker New…

> bad wars All wars are bad, but if you meant unsuccessful then until the Taliban again starts harboring terrorist intent on attacking the United States its a bit early to label it a 'bad war'. Similarly, Iraq is no longer a threat in the region and is instead a sink hole into which Iran must expend blood and treasure to maintain influence. Perhaps in time one or both can be clearly viewed as unsuccessful, but its no…

You can literally always justify a war lol. The "stability" argument is so insane considering the iraq war plunged the region into it's most unstable period of the past century but okay. You also dont consider the enormous collateral damage and loss of life that it caused.

At that point you might as well believe what russia is doing is okay because in the very long run it's probably going to mean it will lead to less neo-nazis in ukraine? If we ignore the destruction and death caused by the russian invasion and focus on a very comparatively tiny upside to the war.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#248

Post by mardifoufs »

stangles1 wrote: post #188
frankfrankfrank wrote: post #165

I won’t mince words; it is unquestionably immoral and evil to join or even support the American military in any capacity in its current form. I say that as someone with direct knowledge and experience, and someone that is not “left” or subscribes to the whole “America always was evil” nonsense, even though there is a legitimate angle to that claim too. The American military is a lying, conniving, duplicitous, war mon…

I question the relevance of your point to this article, which speaks exclusively of the British Army Reserve, specifically the Cheshire Yeomanry.

The british army also invaded iraq.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#249

Post by dugmartin »

dogman144 wrote: post #11

The DoD could certainly use some technical help, and the leadership from ex (or current reserve/national guard aka "R/NG") officers and NCOs in tech jobs benefits the tech industry. The issue is this - the American military Reserve/NG is not very truthful, in my experience, with the time commitments. The marketing slogan is "a weekend a month, two weeks a summer" of time commitment, or something to that effect. In re…

Just a small aside, Huntsville, AL seems to make perfect sense to me to build a new facility. It has a huge built in base as it supposedly already has one of the highest concentration of STEM majors in the USA and the cost of living is 55% lower than SF (https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...). If you are going to make government wages your dollar will go a lot farther there.

Re: Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech

#250

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

notch656a wrote: post #205
throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, but not in combat roles and while sure, those 6 or 8 or whatever out of 10 army people per 1 grunt do contribute a lot, they don't get shot at. no risk, all reward

Yeah because no one in a logistics or support role was ever awarded a purple heart /s.

sure, and if you go back in time far enough, you can say that generals get killed in combat too

how many logistics and support personnel casualties did the US have in any war during this century?

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